


Waiting for the Sun

by monchy



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, F/M, HIV/AIDS, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monchy/pseuds/monchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kris laughs, delighted. Who knew there were actual nice people in L.A.? Or people like Adam? Unexpected and intense, making Kris loose his breath with no explanation whatsoever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for the Sun

The apartment is tiny and cramped, too many old pieces of furniture stuffed in just so it looks fit to rent. It isn’t much, really, but Kris can afford it and it does have a great balcony that brings light and breeze inside the walls. He had thought he would end up living in a far worse place, so despite the way Katy had looked at it when she’d visited last weekend, he’s happy with it. He will be happier once he manages to actually take his stuff out of the brown boxes that are currently making the small space look even smaller.  
  
It’s supposed to be temporary, really. He just wants to get a head start, maybe play a few open mic nights, get to know the city. After he marries Katy, once the wedding presents start flowing in, they’ll get a bigger, nicer place and she’ll move in definitely. So he just has to wait. In the mean time, there’s the lonely looking walls, the piles of half-written lyrics, and his beautiful balcony.  
  
*  
  
He doesn’t like L.A. It seems to him that it is nothing but a concrete monster, a place that only looks good in postcards. It’s not welcoming at all, and Kris misses home. He misses home-cooked pies, playing with his dad, his friends, Katy’s hair and most of all his mom’s smile.  
  
He finds himself a job at a coffee shop just around the corner, and spends his days serving coffee and searching for places that will allow him to strum his guitar and sing a couple of notes in front of a couple of strangers. Katy will never truly understand, but that’s the only thing that makes him truly, elatedly happy, and it’s the only reason that makes him tolerate the loneliness that creeps all around him. He hates L.A., and he hates how hard it is to find someone to talk to.  
  
*  
  
The weather is crazy, too, one day sunny, one day rainy, so he’s not surprised to see many customers walking inside the coffee shop with wet shoes. He thinks he will have to clean that later, and manages a small glare in the direction of everyone who crosses the door, making the annoying bells above it jingle.  
  
He doesn’t expect him, but then again, how could he? A man walks in, wet like a dog and shaking black hair streaked with blue. He’s tall but lean, and before Kris sees his eyes, he spies too tight pants and snakeskin boots. But then, oh, then there’s blue eyes that shine against pale skin, smudged eyeliner and a world of freckles showing in between ruined make-up. The man doesn’t look happy as he struts – and that’s the only word for it – towards him, or even as he orders too cups of coffee to go. Kris watches him, dumbfounded, and when the man starts pouring unhealthy amounts of sugar on one of the cups, Kris can’t help himself.  
  
He says, “That just can’t be healthy.”  
  
The man stares at him, surprised. His eyes are distracting, and Kris finds himself having problems to breathe.  
  
“Well, honey, what doesn’t kill you and all that.” The man offers him a smile, full wattage, unguarded and completely genuine. Kris’s heart does a somersault inside his chest.  
  
Then, he’s just watching the stranger leave, and later on, nothing but the rain pattering away against the windows of the place.  
  
*  
  
The first of his neighbors he actually sees is a man somewhere in his sixties, but that looks about a decade older, with parched-looking skin and tired eyes. He’s also struggling against a crutch that’s barely holding him. Kris rushes to his side, bringing one arm around his waist and holding him upright.  
  
“Jesus!” The man looks at him, anger in his eyes. “All I wanted was to get my own stupid mail.”  
  
Kris says nothing, looking at the old looking robe the man is wearing, his weak-looking feet in slippers and the white bandages around his right hand.  
  
“What’s your floor? I’ll just help you up,” Kris offers.  
  
The man sighs, and it’s obvious that he doesn’t want the help but that he can’t reject it. Kris waits patiently, holding him up and trying not to wonder about what exactly brought the man to such a weakened condition; he can only guess, and he doesn’t like the answer.  
  
“I’m 4B,” the man says finally.  
  
“Oh, you’re right across the hall from me then. I’m Kris.” He offers his best smile as they stumble towards the elevator, channeling his best inoffensive southern boy charm, just like his mama talk him.  
  
“Richard, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”  
  
Kris beams.  
  
*  
  
Next afternoon, right after his shift at the coffee shop and right before walking towards a bar he’s already played once before, he stops by to see Richard. He makes coffee for the two of them, trying to ignore the chaos inside the small apartment. It’s mostly books, old and new, all piled up with no apparent order. It’s a bit romantic and a bit sad at the same time, and Kris has already decided that he’s going to love this man.  
  
He listens to his story greedily, and learns that Richard’s a writer, a rather famous one apparently, but that – and Richard says this jokingly if a bit painfully – he’s driven his whole family crazy, so no one comes visit anymore. Kris promises that he will.  
  
They say goodbye, and when Kris looks up right before losing sight of the building, he sees Richard waving at him from the window. He waves back, and smiles all the way to the bar, his guitar heavy against his back, but his heart lighter that it has felt in days.  
  
*  
  
Later that night, there’s a knock on his door. Kris jumps, surprised, and stares at the clock ticking away on the wall, announcing that it’s almost midnight. Tick, tack, tick, tack, the sound accompanies him to the door, and when he opens it, he finds himself even more surprised. There’s angry looking eyes behind it, black-blue hair and long legs that seem to go on forever clad in skinny jeans.  
  
“What exactly are you doing with Richard?”  
  
“Huh, what?”  
  
“Hanging around his house or something?”  
  
Kris is confused, but he spies hands that tremble inside fingerless gloves, and eyes that are watery behind all the rage contained in them.  
  
“Look, I just helped him up the other day. And we had some coffee, is all. I-I enjoy his company.”  
  
Kris looks up, his best puppy dog eyes in place, waiting patiently for the larger man before him to calm himself. Whatever he said, it seems to work, making the pretty features before him soften, worrying wrinkles smoothing out beautifully. That lack of air feeling is back, and Kris touches his neck unconsciously.  
  
“I’m sorry, really,” the man says finally, loosening his grip on the doorframe and taking one step back. “Some kids used to bother him, and I just – _fuck_ , I just lose my temper and I–”  
  
“Hey, why don’t you come in? Coffee, maybe?”  
  
The man relaxes visibly then, nods. Kris moves away from the door to let him walk in, and he feels strange, invaded somehow, but in a pleasant way. He never thought he’d have someone like the man before him inside his place, so close.   
  
Five minutes later, the not-such-a-stranger-anymore is sitting at his kitchen table and has a cup of coffee in one of his hands, the one that has Bugs Bunny on it. Kris is mildly embarrassed. He hides behind his own cup, until he notices that the one hand the man has on the table is still trembling slightly. Kris thinks it doesn’t suit him, not a man that looks ready to eat the world up. Kris reaches out, stupid and unconscious, and presses his own hand on top of the other man’s.  
There’s a slight jump from the man in front of him, who had been thoroughly concentrated on the grey line that cracks the painting of the ceiling.  
  
“You’re that guy, from the coffee shop.”  
  
“It’s Kris, actually.”  
  
The man smiles at him, smaller than the last time but just as genuinely, and hums softly. “I don’t know, I think I prefer Cute Coffee Shop Guy for you.”  
  
Kris blushes. Furiously. He can tell.  
  
The guy just laughs, and that’s about the nicest sound Kris has ever heard.  
  
“I’m Adam.”  
  
Kris looks up, tries smiling. “So, anyway, Richard is your…” Kris would have guessed father, but that doesn’t really match Richard’s story.  
  
“I call him my Messiah, but he’s not really fond of it.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
And so Adam shares his story. He tells Kris about being the shy, fat kid at school, about being confused and later scared, about trying to find his place in the world and about finding nothing but the wrong kind of people. He talks about dying his hair and getting thin, about finding a fake kind of confidence in drugs, and about screwing up and having to choose between jail and community service. He tells him how he hated Richard at first, hated being forced to help, and about how Richard had been the only one who had gotten through his thick skull and had sent him down the right path. He finishes his story with:  
  
“He’s my mom’s favorite person.”  
  
Kris laughs, failing to remove his hand from it its place above Adam’s.  
  
“We fight a lot, but I can’t really leave the old guy alone now.  
  
“Fight about what?” Kris asks.  
  
“Oh, honey, nothing, everything. He says I’m a drama queen.”  
  
“I’m _definitely_ on his side, then.”  
  
Adam mock glares at him, and then he smiles, bright and vibrant. Kris’s heart goes down to his stomach and climbs back up slowly, making it hard to breathe.  
  
*  
  
He doesn’t tell Katy about Adam or Richard, and he can’t explain himself why.  
  
*  
  
It’s a sunny day today, and Kris decides to go for a stroll before going to the bar two blocks away where he’s actually getting paid to sing. He has a couple of regulars and all, and if that’s all he ever gets, he’ll be happy about it.  
  
In front of the elevator, he finds Richard sitting comfortably on a wheelchair and Adam behind it, fresh make-up on and purple stripes substituting the blue ones in his hair. Richard waves enthusiastically, and Kris smiles, walking into the elevator with them.  
  
“This here is Adam,” Richard introduces.  
  
“Oh, I know Adam. He yelled at me the other day, and then he drank all my sugar with his coffee.”  
  
“How dare you?” mock-gasps Adam, bringing one hand to his chest, exaggerated and perfectly poised. “I grace you with my presence and that’s how you treat me?”  
  
“You yelled at him?” Richard asks, looking up at Adam. “What else are you going to do? Kick a puppy?”  
  
Adam pouts, his lip jutting out _just so_ , perfect even under the phosphorescent light of the elevator. “I did apologize, _and_ I let him call me a drama queen.”  
  
“Ah, very well, then, it seems like we can let it go this time.”  
  
Kris laughs, delighted. Who knew there were actual nice people in L.A.? Or people like Adam? Unexpected and intense, making Kris loose his breath with no explanation whatsoever.  
  
Richard invites him to walk with them, and the three of them end up sitting at a bench in what’s probably L.A.’s nicest park. It’s small in a way that only apartments seem to be in this city, and it has just the right amount of trees. Kris breathes in the air, smelling grass in the summer and rainwater, and he feels at peace.  
  
Adam asks about the guitar he’s been carrying all this time, and this time it is Kris who tells his story. He talks about having his whole life set for him, about meeting the perfect girl in school and imagining children and dogs. He tells them how it didn’t feel like enough, and how he begged Katy to let him at least try to make a living out of his music, and how now they barely see each other every other weekend. He talks about marrying her in a few months, and about her moving in with him, and finally starting their life together.  
  
Adam ignores the part about his fiancé, and asks about his music, asks if he’s any good. Kris doesn’t how to answer that, and right before leaving, he promises both Adam and Richard to let them come watch him play one of these days.  
  
*  
  
Kris starts reading Richard’s last novel. It’s about a gay kid who feels lost and finds himself again thanks to an old writer that has AIDS and no one in his life. It’s heart wrenching and beautiful, and the only part of the story that makes him smile is the dedicatory: _To Adam, my always cheerful friend._  
  
*  
  
Adam starts coming by the coffee shop just to drink one cup of sugary coffee and spend hours talking to Kris. They talk music and shoes, life and ideas, and mostly Adam just jokes a lot, calling him honey just to make him blush. Sometimes Adam brings his friends: Brad, who once broke his heart but who is his rock now; Cassidy, who likes Kris instantly; Allison, who is crazy and loud and makes Adam happy; and sometimes Richard, coughing and joking away.  
  
Kris never asks about Richard’s sickness, and Adam never tells.  
  
Adam never asks about Katy, and Kris never tells.  
  
*  
  
Katy spends the next weekend with him. She comes hear him play, they eat greasy Chinese food and they have enough sex to last them a lifetime. She still tiny and perfect, with the blond hair that he so often misses and the smile he fell in love with all those years ago. They’ve changed since they meet, but they have stayed each other’s constants in life, and Kris feels guilty because something is not quite the same with her.  
  
They’re lying in bed on Sunday morning, and Kris grabs her face between his hands, looks into her eyes and tells her that he loves her. She squints at him, and asks him if everything’s alright. He nods, trying to convince himself.  
  
That same afternoon there’s a knock on his door, and Kris answers in nothing but a pair of jeans. He meets Adam’s twinkling eyes, stares into his glitter covered face.  
  
“Well, if you wanna answer the door like that more often, I won’t be the one opposing, honey.”  
  
Kris blushes all over, and just blinks until Katy appears from somewhere inside the apartment, clad in one of his sweaters. She looks more beautiful than ever, and she smells of apple shampoo and comfort. Kris stammers when she introduces her to Adam.  
  
“The elusive fiancé,” Adam says, extending a black-nailed hand. Kris doesn’t know if his smile is strained, but it certainly doesn’t look real.  
  
“This is Adam, a friend.”  
  
“Oh, nice to meet you.”  
  
Kris watches Katy’s mouth form a perfect _oh_ , and bites his lower lip. He hates himself for the look on Adam’s eyes, hurt because it’s clear that Katy has never heard about him before.  
  
“Well, I was gonna invite you to dinner at Richard’s, but you should spend your time with Katy here. Nice to meet you, doll, you’re just as pretty as I imagined.”  
  
Katy giggles a little under Adam’s gaze, easily delighted by Adam’s charm. Kris is feeling desperate and a little lost. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, what he’s supposed to do or what exactly it is that he’s feeling. When Adam starts to leave, though, he reaches out almost desperately, and grabs at Adam’s arm. He gets inside his personal space, and smells leather and coffee.  
  
“Maybe you and Richard would like to come hear me play next Tuesday.”  
  
Adam’s smile is tiny but promising, just for Kris. Kris’s heart skips a beat when Adam leans down, kisses his forehead and whispers _we would love_ _to_ softly against his skin.  
  
*  
  
Richard’s been coughing too much lately, and Adam looks worried. He hasn’t been sleeping, Kris can tell, and lately he has been force feeding him a bit. Richard is glad that someone’s taking care of Adam, and just smiles approvingly at him.  
  
Next Tuesday, when Kris steps onto the little stage at the bar, guitar behind his back and hands sweaty with nerves, he looks out and searches for Adam and Richard. And there they are, Richard dressed for a cold weather that they’re not really having, and Adam in his full-on glam outfit, looking so different from the low-key crowd of the place that Kris has to smile.  
  
He plays _Heartless_ that night, followed by _Ain’t no sunshine_ and then going for his originals: _The truth_ and _Before we come undone_. He closes with _Falling slowly_ , and his eyes don’t move away from Adam’s during the whole performance.  
  
“You’re a talented young man,” is Richard’s verdict, one that’s closely followed by more of that terrible coughing of his.  
  
“You… wow, honey, you’re _riveting_.” Adam’s staring at him, eyes bright and wide.   
  
Kris beams, happy, exhilarated. There’s nothing closer to joy for him than Adam and music in the same place, and the feeling disturbs him so much that all he can down is swallow a whole glass of water and try to control his blush.  
  
*  
  
He talks to his mom on the phone. He talks to Katy, and Cale, and then dad and Daniel, too. It all seems so far away, in another universe, and Kris has never been more scared in his whole life.  
  
*  
  
Someone knocks on his door and Kris is surprised to find Richard behind it. He looks paler than Kris ever remembers seeing him, and he’s clutching at his crutch like he can barely stand. Kris reaches out and grabs his arms, steadying his weakening frame.  
  
“Is everything ok?”  
  
Richard smiles at him with lips that where once pretty, and orders, “Put on your best clothes, pretty boy, I’m taking you somewhere.”  
  
Kris raises both eyebrows, but does as he’s told. He pushes Richard’s wheelchair through a few dark streets, and they finally arrive at one of those clubs Kris would never go in unless forced. He can’t guess what Richard would want to see in a place like this, but he makes him find a table that has a good view of the stage and tells him to _wait and see._  
  
Kris does so.  
  
What feels like ours later, the loud music blaring through the speakers stops and then changes into the sound of a perfectly clear electric guitar. It feels as if it’s breaking the air and it makes Kris breathe easier. That is, until Adam steps on stage and stars singing, shaping his mouth around the words of _Whole Lotta Love_. He looks… Jesus, but he looks out of this world dressed in black leather, moving around the stage like it was built just for him, and singing seventeen different notes in one second. Kris can’t – won’t – look away.  
  
It takes some time for Adam to spot him, but when he does, he looks for his eyes every two seconds, and doesn’t let his gaze wander while mouthing the words _you’re filthy cute and you know it_ to Prince’s _Cream._ Kris stops breathing for the whole hour that Adam is on stage, and he’s never been this scared in his whole life.  
  
“So tell me, just how in love with him are you?” Richard asks him while they walk back home. They haven’t waited for Adam, Richard saying that he needs some time to leave the stage persona behind, and Kris being too shocked to oppose to that.  
  
“I’m – I’m _not_ ,” Kris stammers.  
  
Richard just smiles at him, and shakes his head.  
  
*  
  
Later that night, Adam shows up at his place. He’s smiling, umpped up by the show, all crazy energy and shiny eyes.  
  
“That was amazing, man,” is all Kris manages to say. “I didn’t know you sang. I didn’t know you sang _like that._ ”  
  
“I was gonna be a big star, you know?” Adam says later, jacket lost somewhere in the floor of Kris’s living room and right hand wrapped tightly around a glass of cold water. “Never took off, though. No one really wants a big queer who screams too much.”  
  
Adam laughs, joking with his own pain in a way Kris can’t stand. He thinks of him that night, the confidence in his steps as he walked around stage, the way he looked, as if he owned the world. He wants to wax poetic about Adam’s singing. Instead, he kisses him. He doesn’t mean to, but then it’s too late to change his mind, too late to do something that’s not push his hands into Adam’s hair and his tongue into Adam’s mouth.  
  
They wrap themselves around each other, and Kris looses notion of time, even doubting its existence altogether. He watches Adam, naked above him, gorgeous and perfect and all those things only people in romance novels are supposed be. But there’s Adam, all soft hands and questing lips, turning his life upside down, whispering against him as he touches him and let’s himself be touched.  
  
Kris’s breath comes short when he lifts his hips, letting Adam fit himself inside him. It feels as if Adam is taking all he’s offering, and as if Kris is offering all he’s got.  
  
They fuck like teenagers, like it’s the first and the last time, Adam’s skin slick against Kris’s, the sound of flesh meeting flesh filling the air along their ragged breaths, the quiet whispers of each other’s names. Kris holds Adam as close as he can, legs around his waist, hands firm on his shoulders, lips claiming attention constantly. Kris has never felt more alive.  
  
*  
  
Next morning, Kris wakes up to an empty bed. He looks at the picture of Katy on his nightstand, and understands.  
  
That same morning he writes a letter addressed to Richard, tells him that he’s sorry, that he’s never met someone like him before and that he can’t thank him enough for his friendship. At the end of the page he writes: _Tell Adam that I’m sorry, and that he means the world to me._  
  
He leaves the letter on Richard’s mailbox on his way out, right after packing his bags, and right before catching a flight to Arkansas.  
  
*  
  
He eats home-cooked pie, sings with his father and goes out with his friends. He kisses Katy goodnight every day and watches his mother’s pretty smile. He hates that nothing feels the same; he hates that everything _hurts._  
  
*  
  
A month later, he receives a call. Adam is on the other line, but he doesn’t sounds like himself, and Kris is worried the moment he hears the first word.  
  
“He died, Kris,” Adam says after long pause. “Richard died. Of a fucking cold.”  
  
The phone leaves his fingers and falls to the floor with a load clack. He grabs at the arm of the chair next to him and sits slowly, looking at nothing in front of him. And then he cries.  
  
*  
  
“I can’t do this,” is what he tells Katy.  
  
She doesn’t seem to understand, even when she knows that things have been strange between them, that Kris has been behaving like he doesn’t know what to do with himself for the last few weeks.  
  
“Katy, I love you, but I can’t do this.”  
  
There’s a lot more that he could be saying, excuses and explanations, but he knows Katy doesn’t need them. He wants to tell her that they grew apart, that maybe he never knew what he wanted until it was right before his eyes, that he can’t bear the thought of hurting her. Instead, he just lets her hug him and leave her engagement ring in his palm.  
  
*  
  
Richard’s apartment is full of people he’s never seen before. They’re all dressed in fancy clothes, all in black, and all seem to be eating or drinking something. They whisper when they see him cross the threshold in his plaid shirt and sneakers, but Kris pays them no mind. The house is cleaner, or maybe just emptier than it used to, but it feels tidier somehow, also more impersonal. He wonders what’s happened to Richard’s books.  
  
He wanders around, and finds Adam in the kitchen, surrounded by half eaten cakes and sitting on the floor, head hidden between his arms. His own black suit makes Kris’s heart clench.  
  
“Adam?”  
  
A tear streaked face looks up at him, and Kris is there the next second, crouching beside Adam, hand soft on his shoulder.  
  
“Look at them, coming here now that he’s dead, mocking the gay guy who has actual tears. They didn’t even know him, his own children and they didn’t even care that he was coughing all the time, and that it sounded worse every day. They didn’t care that he didn’t want any doctors, and they didn’t have to let him die, they–”  
  
“Adam, Jesus, stop.”  
  
Adam does, and then wipes a tear away from Kris’s cheek. They clutch at his each other, desperate for comfort, and stay in the kitchen until everyone else leaves the place.   
  
Later, when there’s nothing but moonlight lighting the place, Kris takes Adam across the hall to the apartment that he’s still renting, puts him to bed and climbs in next to him. They fit themselves to each other like they’d done so many nights ago, this time offering comfort in the silence of their embrace.  
  
*  
  
Kris wakes up alone yet again, but this time he finds Adam in the kitchen, looking at the coffee machine intently.  
  
“That won’t make it go any faster.”  
  
Adam nods, not looking at him, and his eyes have that sad edge to them that make Kris’s heart break. He can’t take it.  
  
He blurts out, “I broke up with Katy.”  
  
Adam looks up at that, eyes half-closed and questioning. “And why did you do such a thing, honey?”  
  
“I can’t really marry her when I’m in love with you, right?”  
  
Adam looks back at the coffee machine at that, and Kris takes a step back, his heart pounding away in chest. And then Adam starts to talk.  
  
“Richard told me that I should just ask you out on a proper date. He told me like, every day. And I said that you had a fiancé. He always told me that I shouldn’t let something as silly as that keep me away from true love.”  
  
When Adam offers him his hand, Kris takes it.  
  
*  
  
Two months later, Kris finds himself in his balcony, looking out to L.A., an unwelcoming city that he still hates almost every day. It’s gray out today, and it will start raining in no time. Behind him, Adam puts a hand on the small of his back, rubs slowly.  
  
“And how are you today, Mr. Kris Allen?”  
  
Kris presses himself against Adam’s chest, and twists his neck up and around so he can kiss Adam properly, the way he kisses him every day.  
  
“I’ve never been better.”


End file.
